Local

A Gilbert man was crushed and killed by a tractor just south of the Elgin community in Pleasant Hill on Friday afternoon, May 17.
James Paul Staehr, 72, died in the accident in the 3600 block of Kershaw Camden Highway at about 2 p.m., said Lancaster County Coroner Mike Morris. The accident scene is near the Pleasant Hill area.
Morris did not release Staehr’s name until Saturday when his family had been notified.
The accident happened minutes after Staehr had finished plowing a field located off the road and in a pasture.

A man was crushed and killed by a tractor just south of the Elgin community in Pleasant Hill on Friday afternoon, May 17.

The man, whose name is not being identified until his family is notified, died in the accident ain the 3600 block of Kershaw Camden Highway at about 2 p.m., said Lancaster County Coroner Mike Morris. The accident scene is near the Pleasant Hill area.

Morris said the accident happened as the man was loading a tractor and plow onto a trailer.

For the second time in less than a year, state Rep. Ted M. Vick (D-53) of Chesterfield has been arrested in Columbia on a charge of driving under the influence. District 53 includes the Spring Hill precinct in eastern Lancaster County.

The latest incident reportedly happened on the Statehouse grounds Tuesday evening, May 14, when an officer saw Vick, 40, staggering as he went into a parking garage there.

– B. Frank Sowell of the Lancaster Police Department died July 4, 1937. He was 39. Sowell and his partner saw a suspicious vehicle sitting under a light at Main Street and Chesterfield Avenue about 1:30 a.m. When Sowell’s partner approached the car, it sped off. After a car chase, the suspect’s vehicle crashed and Sowell was shot twice with a 12-gauge shotgun.

– Patrolman Walter Bell of the S.C. Highway Patrol died Feb. 4, 1939. He was killed in a car crash in Kershaw while on patrol.

It looks like the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be represented in the city of Lancaster’s 2013-14 budget.

During discussion of the budget at the Tuesday, May 14, meeting, City Councilwoman Tamara Green Garris requested that $3,000 be added to the budget to help fund a King Day parade next January in downtown Lancaster.

Green said the event would allow local residents to unite while also drawing visitors from outside the county. The money would come from the city’s hospitality fund.

Dr. John Murdock, left, holds the door as Barry Catoe, a supervisor at the U.S. Postal Service office in Lancaster, moves a pallet of food to be sorted during the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger! food drive on Saturday, May 11. Now in its 21st year, the food drive is the largest single-day food drive in the United States. Food collected in Lancaster County is delivered to HOPE in Lancaster. Murdock is a member of the HOPE board of directors. Last year, more than 9,000 pounds of food benefited HOPE’s food pantry.

A group of Indian Land residents, fed up with what they say is the county’s lack of movement on dire issues affecting the community has reinvigorated its efforts to garner support for incorporation as a municipality.

Though activity by the special interest group Indian Land Voice flagged somewhat last year, the group now has new officers, a second wind and is pressing forward in the process.